Description

You've been given the opportunity to start your very own garden - only this garden will be full of Piñata animals that are full of candy! Nurture your garden to attract a wide variety of unique Piñata species as you aim to keep your residents happy.

Viva Piñata is a simulation in the vein of a game like Harvest Moon. While there is no specific story or goal to the game, you can progress further by attracting many different types of Piñatas into your garden. At first, you'll only have a small patch of land covered in junk; however, with some cleaning up and basic maintenance, you can begin to attract many different species, starting from the tiny Whirlm, to larger creatures like Horstachio.

If you're more interested in money-making than collecting, you can get the Piñatas to produce goods, like honey or milk, for you. Failing that, you can simply sell off any of your excess Piñatas after you learn how to get them to mate. Each species has its own particular ritual and conditions for mating. Occasionally, mischievous Sour Piñatas will turn up to cause trouble in your garden. If you can cure them of their sour condition, they'll help your garden instead! You can also get the services of the local Piñata Island residents, such as shopping, garden maintenance, and Piñata capture (if you require a particular species).

Trivia

1001 Video Games

References

One of the info screens in the game states: "Use the D-pad to make a real-time tool change and wallop Seedos' weak point for massive seedage". With this sentence, Rare takes a stab at Bill Rich's speech while presenting Genji: Days of the Blade at the E3 2006 game show. He mentioned the game features "[...]Real-time[...]weapon change[...]" and said (about a giant crab) "You attack its weak point for massive damage". These have evolved into internet memes and are also referenced in other games.

During the beginning, when the player smashes junk in their garden, one of the items is a Grabbed by the Ghoulies arcade game. This is a reference to the occasional game gag of dissing the developers' previous mess-ups. The home for the Crowla is modeled after the haunted mansion from Grabbed by the Ghoulies.

TV Series

There is a childrens' television series based on the game. It was created by 4Kids Entertainment, the company that did the voices of the characters. The show airs on 4Kids TV on Saturday mornings.